BR ' 




E OLD GOSPEL IN 
THE NEW CENTURY 



JAMES D. MCCAUGHTRY 



LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 




Class _EJL__ 



Book 




GojyrightN?._ 




COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 





THE OLD GOSPEL IN 
THE NEW CENTURY 



BY 



JAMES D. McCAUGHTRY 



"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our 
hearts unto wisdom." Psalm 90:12. 




BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 

TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO, LIMITED 



Copyright, T915, by James D. McCaughtry 



All Rights Reserved 






The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 

AUG -7 1915 

©CLA410015 
tto, 



To 

The Reverend 
DAVID JAMES BURRELL, D.D., LL.D., 

Pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church 

of New York City, 

whose helpful suggestions and wise counsel 

in my early ministry, 

helped to make this volume possible, 

this book is dedicated 

with grateful acknowledgment of his friendship. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

The Church in the Light of History 9 

The Bible Tested in the Crucible of Time 21 

The Biblical Basis of Foreign Missions 31 

Figuring Out the Profits in a Losing Game 43 

The Church and the Working Man of the Twen- 
tieth Century 53 

The Practical Value of Christianity as a National 

Asset 73 

The Call of the Hour 87 



THE CHURCH IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY 



"For if this counsel or this work be of men, it will 
come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow 
it"— Acts 5:38, 39. 

"The small mud-huts of bigotry will be submerged by 
the mighty cataclysm of human progress, but the Church, 
founded upon a rock, will remain above the floods" — 
Ecce Deus. 



The Old Gospel in the New 
Century 

THE CHURCH IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY 

IN the years of childhood we accept with unques- 
tioning faith the instructions of our parents and 
teachers; but as the years pass and the faculties of 
the mind expand, as the reason grows stronger and 
we begin to broaden the foundations of our faith, we come 
to a point where we begin to ask questions about our 
environment and want to be able to give an intelligent rea- 
son for our faith. We come at length to a place where we 
awake to the fact that we are in a world that is several 
thousand years older than we are, that we are living in 
the midst of laws and institutions that have come down 
from hoary antiquity, and we very naturally want to 
know the meaning of these facts and institutions. We 
find among these institutions the Church with its system 
of doctrine and its forms of worship, and we begin to 
ask ourselves, What is the Church? What is its mission 
to our age and what its relation to our life problems? 

Our fathers believed that it was a divine institution 
founded by Christ for the purpose of saving men and 
women from sin and at length establishing the reign of 
righteousness in the earth. 

There are those in our day who tell us that the church 
is merely a human institution like the lodge, the school 
or the lyceum; that people of like tastes and aims have 
banded themselves together for mutual improvement and 
have called the society thus formed a church. 

Sooner or later the question will force itself upon each 

9 



io THE OLD GOSPEL 

of us, Is the Church a human institution? or is it a 
divine institution resting upon the life and character of 
Jesus Christ? It is my purpose in this chapter to try to 
meet this inquiry by an appeal to history and an examina- 
tion of facts. 

The Church has proved itself to be of God by the fact 
that it has met and successfully vanquished every form of 
opposition that it has encountered in the nearly two thou- 
sand years of its existence. 

When the divine Founder of the Church was born in 
Bethlehem a price was put upon his life. A royal edict 
was issued from the palace of Herod that all the male chil- 
dren in and around Bethlehem should be slain. But in 
spite of this cruel edict the very child for whom it was 
intended escaped and grew to manhood in the village of 
Nazareth, and when He was about thirty years old began 
to proclaim himself the founder of a kingdom — a kingdom 
unlike any other that had ever existed on earth. It was 
not founded upon force or wealth or learning, but upon 
love. It w T as a kingdom that was to have no limitations 
in time or geographical extension. It was to reach to 
the uttermost parts of the earth and to the uttermost 
limits of time and to the uttermost depths of man's need. 

Jesus gathered around him twelve men, taught them 
his doctrines, showed them his works and sent them forth 
to preach his gospel to all nations. When these twelve 
men set out upon their task they found heathenism strong- 
ly entrenched on every hand. Heathenism had the patron- 
age of emperors and statesmen. It counted among its 
adherents the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Caesars of Rome. 
Heathenism had then all the machinery of government at 



IN THE NEW CENTURY n 

its command, all the courts of law, all the armies and 
navies. If the apostles appealed to the courts for redress 
of any grievance, their case must be tried before a tribunal 
that was not in sympathy with their views. The judges 
had been reared by heathen mothers, trained in heathen 
schools, and were thoroughly heathen in all their ideas. 
If the apostles appealed to arms to establish their cause, 
all the armies were commanded and manned by those who 
were heathen in their ideas. Christianity had no great 
statesmen or soldiers, in fact no great names save that 
one NAME that is above every name, the name of the 
crucified Christ. 

Heathenism had the support of the accumulated wealth 
of forty centuries. All the treasuries of the nations were 
controlled by those who were heathen. We know some- 
thing of the power of wealth in the hands of corrupt men 
to prevent the progress of righteousness in our own day, 
but that power was tenfold greater in the degenerate days 
of the Caesars than it is now, and these corrupt opponents 
of the Gospel did not hesitate to use money to bribe men 
to oppose the spread of the Christian religion. 

Heathenism had the prestige of the best scholarship of 
all the past ages. It counted among its followers the great 
poets, philosophers, orators and historians. However much 
any of these men might have wished to be in sympathy 
with the message of the apostles, they had their present 
environment and their past training to overcome. Homer 
and Virgil wrote their great epics to set forth the glory 
of heathen gods and goddesses. The philosophers wrote 
from a heathen point of view, the orators knew no other 
gods than those of Mt. Olympus. We are aware of the 



ia THE OLD GOSPEL 

power of great universities and educational centers in 
moulding public sentiment in our day, but that power was 
even greater in those far-off days when there were no 
newspapers or magazines and when only the few could 
read and write. Christianity had no schools at the first — 
no poets, no philosophers, no orators. Its representatives 
were twelve humble men from around the shores of the 
sea of Galilee who were imbued with the spirit of the 
Christ and who were willing to surrender their lives if 
need be for His cause. 

Heathenism was entrenched behind the prejudices of 
the people. It appealed to the passions and vices of men. 
Christianity sought to overcome the prejudices, curb the 
passions and destroy the vices of the people. 

Heathenism had its temples and its votaries in every 
land. Christianity had no temples and few disciples. The 
Master said to one who would become a disciple: 
"The foxes have holes and the birds of the heaven have 
nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His 
head. ,, The sermon which is the keynote of his teaching, 
known as the Sermon on the Mount, was delivered on 
a hill in Galilee and most of his discourses were delivered 
from a fishing boat or in the open air around the shores 
of the sea. The first three hundred years of the history of 
the Church are a history of persecution, poverty and 
martyrdom ; but out of this baptism of fire and blood and 
tears it came triumphant, and in the year three hundred 
and thirteen placed a Christian emperor on the throne 
of the Caesars. In the enthronement of Constantine, Chris- 
tianity became the recognized religion of the Roman 
Empire. 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 13 

Again, the Church met with opposition in the deism of 
England and the atheism of France in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. Gibbon and Hume, the great his- 
torians, hurled all the force of their great powers of in- 
tellect against the religion of Jesus Christ. They dashed 
their arguments against the Rock of Divine Truth; but 
it was like striking one's fists against the rock of Gibral- 
ter, and Hume acknowledged at the last that he had failed. 
These are his own words: "I seem affrighted and con- 
founded by the solitude in which I am placed by my 
philosophy. When I look abroad on every side I see 
dispute, contradiction and distraction. When I turn my 
eye inward I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. 
Where am I ? What am I ? From what cause do I derive 
my existence ? To what condition shall I return ? I am 
confounded with questions. I begin to fancy myself in a 
very deplorable condition, surrounded with darkness on 
every side." 

Voltaire and Rousseau, the versatile skeptics of that 
time, wrote scathing denunciations of the Christian re- 
ligion and tried to laugh it out of court, but it would not 
be laughed out any more than it would be reasoned out, 
and while their sneers are forgotten the Gospel still lives 
and exerts a mighty uplifting and ennobling influence 
upon the lives of thousands who do not know even the 
names of these men of genius, wit and ridicule. Voltaire 
once made the prediction that within one hundred years 
the Bible would be out of print and the Christian re- 
ligion would be swept from the earth as an effete super- 
stition. But what are the facts? Since that prediction 
was uttered more people have accepted Christ as their 



i 4 THE OLD GOSPEL 

Saviour and united with the visible Church than all the 
people that had accepted the Christian faith in all the 
sixteen centuries that had gone before. Verily Voltaire 
was a prophet, but like Balaam a false prophet! 

"Oh where are kings and empires now 

Of old that went and came? 
But, Lord, thy Church is praying yet, 

A thousand years the same. 
We mark her goodly battlements 

And her foundations strong; 
We hear within the solemn voice 

Of her unending song. 
For not like kingdoms of the world 

Thy holy Church, O God; 
Though earthquake shocks are threatening her, 

And tempests are abroad ; 
Unshaken as the eternal hills, 

Immovable she stands, 
A mountain that shall fill the earth, 

A house not made with hands. ,, 

The Church of Jesus Christ has shown itself to be a 
divine institution by what is has done to elevate and im- 
prove men and nations materially, intellectually, morally 
and socially as well as religiously. Some years ago there 
fell into my hands a book entitled, "National Salvation." 
One of the chapters of the book, on "The Economic Value 
of Redemption," interested me much. In this chapter the 
author went on to show the material advantage given to 
men and communities by the Christian religion. He took 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 15 

as the unit of comparison the wages of an ordinary day 
laborer in different countries. For instance, the wages 
of a day laborer in India and China, countries dominated 
by heathenism, is about ten cents a day. In Mohammedan 
countries, where there is some knowledge of the true God, 
the wage is from twenty to twenty-five cents a day. In 
Roman-catholic lands, where Christ is known as a Saviour 
very imperfectly, wages rise to> forty and fifty cents a day. 
In Protestant countries, where the Gospel of Christ is 
taught in its purity, we find the wage of a day laborer 
is from a dollar and forty cents to a dollar and fifty 
cents a day. But some one will say that the difference is 
largely a difference in the purchasing power of money. This 
sounds reasonable until we are told that good bread and but- 
ter and cotton and woollen goods, and other things which 
working men in Christian lands regard as necessities of 
life, cost more in Bombay and Peking than they do in 
Chicago, New York or London. 

Again it may be argued that the wages of a country 
is determined not by religion but by the fertility of the 
soil and the condition of the climate. That sounds very 
plausible until you reflect that the wages of a day laborer 
is only forty or fifty cents a day in sunny France and 
among the vine-clad hills of Italy, while among the 
heather-clad hills of Scotland and the rock-ribbed hills of 
New England, with less fertile soil and less salubrious 
climate, men are getting a dollar or a dollar and a half a 
day for common labor. 

In the last analysis it will be found that the prosperity 
of a country is not so much determined by soil and climate 
as by the intelligence and morality of the people. Where 



16 THE OLD GOSPEL 

the Church of Christ becomes the dominant factor in the 
life of any people men and women become more intelligent, 
and as they rise in the scale they make more use of the 
forces of nature and arc able to get more out of the soil. 
As men increase in wisdom and righteousness their wants 
increase and their ability to satisfy those wants is enhanced. 
The fact is that the day laborer in Christian lands lives 
better, is better housed and better fed and clothed, than 
the workers in heathen lands. It should be remembered 
in this connection that almost all the great inventions and 
discoveries that have been made in the last thousand years 
have been the fruit of Christian thought and enterprise. 
If you were to move all the churches out of any State 
in this Union, property would depreciate in value from 
thirty to sixty per cent, within six months. The Church 
has been the patron of free education, the founder of 
colleges and universities, the publisher of books and tracts 
and the originator of hospitals in every land. Wherever 
the Church goes it sets up the printing-press and builds 
a schoolhouse and hospital. 

The Church has shown itself to be of God by the fact 
that it has won the confidence of all sorts and conditions of 
men in every age since the beginning of the Christian 
era. It has the power of adapting its message to meet 
the needs of all kinds of people. Without wealth or culture 
or social prestige it went forth and conquered the Roman 
Empire. In the days of feudalism it concentrated its 
strength in a great hierarchy and met force of brawn with 
force of brain, and the monasteries became the conserva- 
tors of religion and of learning during the dark ages. 
When the revival of learning came the Church awoke 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 17 

in the throes of the Reformation and the new conditions 
of life were met by new methods of applying the Gospel 
message. Witness some of the more recent devlopments 
of the Church to meet the new needs of society. The 
Sunday-school, founded about one hundred and fifty years 
ago, is the Church adapting its message to the children of 
the world. The Salvation Army is the Church adapting 
its message to the submerged classes of our great cities. 
The Y. M. C. A. and the Christian Endeavor Society are 
but the Church reaching out to win the young manhood 
and the young womanhood of the nations to Christ. 

"Like a mighty army moves the Church of God ; 
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod ; 
We are not divided, all one body we, 
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity. 
Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane, 
But the Church of Jesus constant shall remain ; 
Gates of hell can never 'gainst that Church prevail ; 
We have Christ's own promise, and that cannot fail." 



THE BIBLE TESTED IN THE CRUCIBLE OF 

TIME 



"The words of the Lord are pure words \ as silver 
tried in a furnace on the earth, purified seven times'* — 
Psalm 12:6. 

"The Bible, diamond-like, casts its lustre in every direc- 
tion; torch-like, the more shaken the more it shines; 
herb-like, the more pressed the sweeter its fragrance" — 
Anon. 



THE BIBLE TESTED IN THE CRUCIBLE Of 

TIME 

THIS is an age of books and reading. A hun- 
dred years ago reading was the privilege of 
the favored few. Books were so costly that 
only the opulent could afford them, but now 
everybody reads. Newspapers are scattered like the leaves 
of the autumn. Every village has its public library, and 
every home, however humble, has it case of books. The 
public libraries of our own country alone contain many 
millions of volumes, to say nothing of the great libraries 
of the old world, like the Vatican at Rome, the Imperial 
at Paris, or the Bodleian at Oxford, centers where books 
have been accumulating for centuries. 

But among these millions of volumes there is one book 
that still holds the pre-eminence. It is called The Book 
(ton biblion), as if there were no other book worthy of 
the name. This book is remarkable in many respects. 

It is remarkable in its origin. A book is generally the 
product of the mind of some individual who has some- 
thing to communicate to others or who wishes to transmit 
his thoughts to future generations; but the Bible is the 
product of no one man. It is the work of some forty 
different men who lived in different countries, spoke dif- 
ferent languages, and whose lives covered a period of 
almost seventeen hundred years. 

This book that we call the Bible is made up of sixty-six 
books nicely fitted together and as concrete as if it were 

21 



22 THE OLD GOSPEL 

the work of a single author. It is as if some one had 
hewn a rock out of the hills of Vermont, and, in the 
next generation, another had hewn a rock from the quar- 
ries of Dakota, and another from the Rocky Mountains, 
and so on for more than a century, and then, when the 
stones were brought together by mere accident, they were 
found to form a cathedral w^hich surpassed in magnitude 
and beauty the Cathedral of Cologne or St. Peter's at 
Rome. The Bible is the cathedral of literature. It is an 
oratorio wrought out on the keyboard of the centuries by 
the fingers of God. 

The Bible is remarkable for its antiquity. When Shakes- 
peare was a child playing on the banks of the Avon the 
Bible was an old book. Three thousand years before 
Chaucer, the father of English literature, began to write, 
this book was read in the tents of Oriental shepherds. 
Some parts of this book were in existence seven hundred 
years before the foundations of Rome were laid. The 
Laws of Moses were promulgated before Greece became 
a commonwealth, and the Book of Job antedates the Fall 
of Troy. Yet in spite of its antiquity this Book is ever 
new. It has the freshness and dew of youth upon it. 
Other old books have their day, do their work, and then 
are left to moulder on the shelves of old libraries, but 
the Bible is read and re-read age after age as though it 
were the latest novel. 

The Bible is remarkable in its claims. It claims God 
for its Author, and pretends to set forth truth that could 
not have been discovered by the unaided mind of man. 
It claims to give us a revelation of the ultimate and 
highest truth. 'Tor no prophecy ever came by the will 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 23 

of man, but men spoke from God, being moved by the 
Holy Spirit." 

This Book claims to set forth all that we need to know 
about God, all that we need to know about the future, all 
that we need to know about sin, all that we need to know 
about our own souls, or any question concerning our 
eternal salvation. These are high claims. Can they be 
shown to be true ? What is there about the history of the 
Book to* justify these claims? My reply is that these 
claims have been tested in the crucible of experience. The 
Bible has been " tried as silver is tried in a furnace on the 
earth." 

It has been tried in the furnace of persecution. When 
the followers of Christ first began to meet behind closed 
doors to read his sayings and those of the old prophets and 
the apostles, their assemblies were broken up and the read- 
ing of these sacred books was prohibited. The enemies 
of the Bible, as we have shown in the preceding chaptei, 
had back of them the accumulated wealth of forty cen- 
turies. The friends of the Bible had no wealth at all. 
They were shepherds from the hills of Judaea, fishermen 
from the Sea of Galilee, and peasants from Samaria. 
The opponents of the Bible had the patronage of emperors 
and statesmen. The wealth the learning and the aristo- 
cracy of the world were arrayed against the Bible and 
against those who believed its teachings. 

In spite of all this persecution and opposition the Bible 
is the most popular book in the world to-day. The 
longest telegraphic message that ever flashed across the 
continent on the wings of electricity was a message of 
118,000 words of the Revised New Testament from 



24 THE OLD GOSPEL 

Matthew to Romans, sent in 1881 from New York to 
Chicago to be printed in the great Chicago dailies. In 
the year 1800 only about 5,000,000 Bibles were in ex- 
istence in all languages, then about forty languages and 
dialects. Now there are more than 250,000,000 Bibles 
scattered over the world in at least 350 different lan- 
guages. In the year 1804 a society was formed known 
as the British and Foreign Bible Society; since then 
thirty similar societies have been formed. Think of it! 
Thirty societies controlling many millions of dollars of 
capital and employing thousands of men and women in 
the work of publishing and distributing the Bible! Of 
w T hat other book can this be said? The best selling book 
on the market to-day is the Bible. 

And this Book has been tested in the crucible of bigotry 
and superstition. In the Dark ages the priests took this 
book and coffined it in a dead language and buried it in 
a monastic tomb. Then the darkest period of history 
settled down upon the world for a thousand years, but 
like the incarnate Word of God, the grave could not 
hold the written Word, and when the fullness of time 
was come God sent forth His angel in the person of 
Martin Luther to roll the stone from the door of the 
sepulchre, and the Bible arose from that tomb to shed its 
light over two hemispheres in the language of the common 
people. Every effort of superstition to destroy the Bible 
has only multiplied its influence for good. 

A writer in the "Review of Practical Christianity/ ' a 
French magazine, says that in France even the Catholic 
clergy are beginning to see their great mistake in with- 
holding the Bible from the people, and he quotes M. 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 25 

Michael, a Catholic priest, as saying: "All teachers of 
free schools, at least, should make the young under their 
care commit to memory the greater part of the Bible, and 
those who have the care of souls should assure them- 
selves that every family possesses at least one copy of 
the Word of God." He also quotes the rector of the 
Catholic Institute of Paris as saying, in his Lenten sermon 
at Notre Dame, that the "careful and guarded perusal 
of the Bible is one of the most powerful means of strength- 
ening faith and giving a Christian bias to souls." 

The Bible has been tried in the crucible of experi- 
ence. Observation teaches that where the Bible has found 
a lodgment in the minds and hearts of the people it has 
produced a unique type of civilization. 

Every great civilization is built up on some basal prin- 
ciple or ruling idea. The civilization of Egypt was built 
upon the idea of accumulation. The ruling passion was 
wealth. Hence Egypt could build the pyramids and the 
grain cities that have recently been unearthed. The finish- 
ed product of Egypt was a pyramid or a sphinx; but in 
Egypt the people were slaves and the many labored for 
the benefit of the few. 

The civilization of Greece was founded upon the idea 
of culture. Greece built beautiful cities. Greece sang 
the sweetest songs and carved the most beautiful sculpture 
of the past. Greece excelled in art, literature and archi- 
tecture. The finished product of Grecian civilization was 
a statue, a Parthenon or a poem, but the common people 
of Greece were not happy and her philosophers taught 
that only the educated were endowed with souls. 

Rome built up a civilization on the idea of law. Her 



26 THE OLD GOSPEL 

legions carried her eagles to the four corners of the earth. 
Rome put her iron heel on the neck of humanity and ruled 
the world with an iron sceptre, but the people of Rome 
were vagabonds, satisfied with being fed at the public crib, 
and delighted with the brutal shows of the Coliseum. 
Rome gave the world the Temple of Justice; but it 
crushed out individual initiative. 

The civilization produced by the Bible is one of man- 
hood and womanhood. The ideas of wealth, culture and 
law are all included in the Christian ideal of civilization, 
but they are all made subservient to the one great ruling 
purpose of making men and women Godlike. The finished 
product of Christian civilization is a man recognizing his 
divine origin and looking up into the face of God and 
saying "Our Father." The Bible alone has given to the 
world a man in all that the word manhood means, and it 
has put a new and broader meaning into the word. 

Ulfilas, a Gothic youth, translated the Bible into the 
language of the Goths — a task of seven long years; and 
the silent influence of that Bible, working like leaven in 
the minds and hearts of the people, gave to the world the 
great German masters; gave to the world the Reforma- 
tion; gave to the world the civilization that made possible 
a Luther, a Goethe, a Schiller, and a Von Humboldt. A 
hundred years ago the Hawaiian Islands were inhabited 
by savages who ate each other and worshiped on altars 
reeking with human blood. About sixty years ago the 
Bible was taken to those islands, and behold the civiliza- 
tion of that country to-day! 

It is sometimes objected that the original manuscripts 
were full of errors. Suppose the statement were true, 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 27 

what does it matter ? No man living ever saw the original 
manuscripts, but the Book is here like a beautiful lake in 
the midst of a rich and fertile valley. The fertility ol 
the valley is due in large measure to the lake. Will any 
man object to drinking water from the lake because thou- 
sands of years ago there was a report that there was con- 
tagion in one or two of the springs away back in the hills 
which flow into the lake? The Bible nowhere claims to 
be an absolute authority in matters of science or history or 
philology; but it does claim to give us the history of the 
plan of salvation. It claims to be an all-sufficient guide 
in matters of religion and a perfect rule of conduct in 
dealing with our fellow-men. In view of the foregoing 
facts may we not say with the Psalmist — "Thy Word is a 
lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path?" 

At the top of the Queen's staircase in Windsor Castle 
is a statue in bronze. It represents a man with a Bible 
in his outstretched left hand, while with the index ringer 
of his right hand he points to the words from the 119th 
Psalm, "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light 
unto my path." It is said that Edward VI. had it placed 
there that his sons might always be reminded that the 
Bible is the only safe book for a king to follow. This 
was a very commendable act, but why should we wait 
until death has sealed our lips and frozen our hands before 
we commend the Bible to our children and friends? Let 
us hold it up in our living hands, and speak of its truth 
and beauty with these living lips of ours, and God will 
bless us for doing so. In closing let me remind you, 
that, the world's greatest thinkers have reverenced and 
followed this Book." 



28 THE OLD GOSPEL 

John Quincy Adams said: "So great is my veneration 
for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it 
the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove 
useful citizens to their country and respectable members 
of society." 

Daniel Webster said on one occasion: "Without the 
Bible man would be in the midst of a sandy desert, sur- 
rounded on all sides by a dark and impenetrable horizon." 

William H. Seward felt and said that: "The whole 
hope of human progress is suspended upon the ever-growing 
influence of the Bible." 

Dana, a man who spoke with authority among men of 
science in his day, had this to say about the Bible and 
science: "There can be no real conflict between science 
and the Bible, between nature and the Scriptures the two 
Books of the Great Author. Both are revelations made 
by Him to man; the earlier telling of God-made har- 
monies coming up from the deep past and rising to their 
height when man appeared ; the latter teaching man's rela- 
tion to his Maker, and speaking of loftier harmonies in 
the eternal future." 



THE BIBLICAL BASIS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 



"Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the natiom, 
baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the 
Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all 
things zuhatsoever I have commanded you : and lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world" — 
Matthew 28:19, 20. 

"Heathenism was the seeking religion, Judaism the 
hoping religion. Christianity is the reality of what Heath- 
enism sought and Judaism hoped for" — Luthardt. 

"The religion of Jesus Christ is a missionary religion. 
The work and example of its Founder destined it to be 
such. Its early spirit was missionary and its history is a mis- 
sionary history. Whenever it has lost its missionary quality 
it has so far lost its character and ceased to be itself. Its 
characteristic temper has always been missionary, its re- 
vivals of life and power have been attended by quickening 
of missionary energy, and missionary activity is one of the 
truest signs of loyalty to its character and its Lord." — 
William Newton Clarke, D.D. 



THE BIBLICAL BASIS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 



f ^ HERE are many grounds upon which we 

might urge the necessity for an aggressive 
Missionary propaganda. Among these may 
■J w be mentioned the following: 

First: The superiority of our Christian civilization 
over the decadent and effete civilizations of the non- 
Christian world. Wherever the Gospel of Christ becomes 
a dominant factor in the life of any people it establishes 
a new basis or new conception of civilization. 

Second: The value to us of the reflex influence of 
missions — the knowledge of Philology, Ethnology, An- 
thropology, History and Geography has been much en- 
riched by the labors of the missionaries. There is scarcely 
a branch of science that is not largely indebted to the dis- 
coveries and contributions of men and women who have 
gone into distant lands for the express purpose of carrying 
the gospel to the heathen. 

Third: The commercial value of missionary enter- 
prise; for it must be admitted that commerce follows 
the Bible into all lands where the gospel is carried. The 
economic value of redemption is shown in the wages of 
an ordinary day laborer in different countries. As men 
rise in the scale of civilization their wants increase and 
new demands are created for the products of our factories 
and fields in Christian lands. 

Fourth : As a matter of statesmanship it pays to evan- 
gelize the heathen. It is only a few years since China, 

31 



32 THE OLD GOSPEL 

Japan and Korea were hermit nations under the sway of 
the most despotic rulers and refusing to enter into treaty 
relations with the great Occidental nations. Now, through 
the efforts of our Christian missionaries very largely, these 
nations are open to the world and their representatives are 
at Washington and Paris and London, and even Turkey 
has so far adopted the Western forms of government as 
to have a parliament, and China a president. 

But to those of us who accept the Bible as an inspired 
Book, giving us the history and philosophy of God's plan 
for the redemption of a lost world, the chief argument 
for the carrying on of any missionary enterprise must ever 
be the message of the Book. Here we get our marching 
orders and it is ours to follow^ the divine signals as therein 
revealed. 

Even if our civilization were no better than the civiliza- 
tions of the non-Christian world, still from the viewpoint 
of the Bible we would be under obligation to send the 
gospel to the heathen. If there were no commercial ad- 
vantage to be gained and if the missionaries contributed 
nothing to the general store of the world's knowledge, 
still the Church of Jesus Christ would be under the same 
great obligation to go into all the world and preach the 
gospel to every creature. For be it remembered, our first 
and highest obligation is not to the heathen for their own 
sakes, nor to the business world, nor to ourselves as in- 
tellectual beings seeking for more knowledge, but to our 
God and His Son Jesus Christ. 

It requires only a very superficial knowledge of the 
Bible to discover that from beginning to end it is a mis- 
sionary book. The extension of the kingdom of God over 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 33 

all the earth is the supreme purpose for which this divine 
revelation was given to men. The whole inspired record 
from Genesis to Revelation is a missionary book. It was 
written by men who were thoroughly imbued with the 
missionary spirit. Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees that 
he might establish for all time and thoroughout all the 
world the truth that man in his normal condition walks 
by faith and not by sight, and the promises made to him 
by God was that in him and in his seed should all the 
families of the earth be blessed. The writers of the Bible 
were nearly all engaged in missionary work of some kind 
and wrote for direct missionary purposes. Some of them 
sought to extend the reign of God over the hearts of men 
by the sword, others by statesmanship and diplomacy, 
and others by preaching and teaching. From the Penta- 
teuch to Revelation the writers had for their supreme 
purpose the extension of the knowledge of the true God 
and His son Jesus Christ among the heathen. 

The belief that God intended his Church to be a Mis- 
sionary Church is warranted by the predictions of the 
Bible concerning the heathen. Beginning with the promise 
made in the beginning of the world that the seed of the 
woman should ultimately destroy the head of the serpent, 
we find running through the entire web of Scripture a 
golden chain of promises and prophecies looking to the 
final bringing of the kingdoms of the world under the 
sway of the Prince of Peace. 

In Isaiah 9 :6, 7 we have the foregleam of the incarna- 
tion and the prediction in these words: "For unto us a 
child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the government 
shall be upon his shoulders: and his name shall be called 



34 THE OLD GOSPEL 

Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, 
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and 
of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David 
and upon his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it 
with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even 
for ever." 

In Daniel 2:44 we read: "In the days of those kings 
shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall 
never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be 
left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and 
consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." 

In Daniel 7 127 there is the very definite prophecy which 
reads: "And the kingdom and the dominion, and the 
greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall 
be given to the people of the saints of the Most High: 
his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all domin- 
ions shall serve and obey him." 

In Matthew 24:14 we have Christ's own words de- 
claring: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preach- 
ed in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations ; 
and then shall the end come." 

And on another occasion, after his resurrection from the 
dead, in talking with his disciples about their preparation 
for their future work as apostles, Luke tells us that he then 
opened their understanding, that they might understand 
the Scriptures, and said unto them: "Thus it is written, 
that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead 
the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in his name unto all the nations, begin- 
ning from Jerusalem." Here it is taken for granted by 
the Saviour that the Old Testament Scriptures furnish a 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 35 

sufficient warrant for the preaching of repentance and 
remission of sins through Christ to all the nations of the 
world; and St. Paul in his letter to the Romans touches 
upon this same thought and declares that "whosoever shall 
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. " But, 
he asks, "How then shall they call on him in whom they 
have not believed? and how shall they believe in him 
whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear 
without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they 
be sent?" Rome 10:13, 15. 

That these predictions are in line with the definite 
purpose of God as revealed from age to age will appear 
from a comparison of the very plain commands given by 
God to the leaders of his Church in every great epoch of 
the world's history. In I Chronicles 16:23 there is the 
command to the Church of the Old Dispensation: 

"Sing unto Jehovah, all the earth; 
Show forth his salvation from day to day. 
Declare his glory among the nations, 
His marvellous works among all the people." 

In that age when David the sweet singer was upon 
the throne of Israel this command was breathed from the 
harp of the poet king : 

"Declare his glory among the nations, 
His marvellous works among all the peoples. 
For great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised : 
He is to be feared above all gods. 
For all the gods of the peoples are idols: 
But Jehovah made the heavens." 



36 THE OLD GOSPEL 

Again we read: 

"Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine 

inheritance, 
And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." 

At a later day Jonah was sent to preach the salvation 
of the true God to the people of Nineveh. "And the 
word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 
Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto 
it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went 
unto Nineveh, according to the word of Jehovah. Now 
Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' 
journey." 

Now it is evident that it was not for the sake of giving 
them a better civilization, for the Ninevites were more 
highly civilized than were the Jews. It was not for the 
sake of increasing the commercial prosperity of the nations, 
for Nineveh was the great commercial metropolis of the 
world. God sent Jonah to Nineveh because the people 
of that city needed God. They needed salvation from sin. 
They needed moral regeneration : and what the people of 
Nineveh needed then the people of every great city in the 
world need now. 

But the command to the Church of our time is even 
more explicit than that to Jonah. It is from the lips of 
the Divine Master and embodies almost his last expressed 
wish: "And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, 
saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven 
and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all 
the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 37 

and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to 
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and 
lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 

Those who argue that the heathen religions are good 
enough for the heathen should remember that when our 
Saviour uttered this command he did it with the full 
knowledge of what these heathen religions were and what 
they were able to do for their votaries, and yet he said, 
"Go!" With this fact in mind dare any one who accepts 
the Bible as a divine revelation and Christ as his own 
Saviour say that the heathen religions are good enough for 
the heathen? To do so is to set up his frail judgment 
against the judgment of Christ as to the comparative 
merits of the world's great religions. 

But there are others who object to sending out mis- 
sionaries on the ground that the task is so great that it 
can never be accomplished. There are so many millions 
of heathen, and they are so sunken in vice and supersti- 
tion, that there is no possible hope of ever saving them. 
On the biblical basis of missions, and on that alone, can 
this argument be met and successfully answered. But the 
individual who accepts Christ as an authority must admit 
that he must have given this command with a full knowl- 
edge of all the difficulties involved in carrying it out. 
Had we lived when Christ was on earth we would have 
likely said that it was unthinkable that within two thou- 
sand years the greater part of Europe and America would 
be nominally Christian. Heathenism was then world- 
wide in its extent and was strongly entrenched behind 
the prejudices of the people to whom the gospel was to 
be preached; but in spite of this it had permeated the 



38 THE OLD GOSPEL 

Roman Empire within three hundred years. Those who 
use this argument against the missionary propaganda for- 
get the promise given with the command: "All authority 
hath been given unto me." Mark you, he does not say 
that all authority or power is given to the Church or 
to its missionaries, but to Christ himself, and the Church 
can have just so much of that power or authority as she 
is willing to appropriate and use. 

The whole problem then resolves itself mto this: If 
the Church is obedient to the great commission and goes 
forth to preach the gospel to all nations, it is then the 
power of heaven against the power of vice and ignorance 
and superstition. Our business is to give the heathen the 
knowledge of Christ; it is God's business to make that 
knowledge effective in overcoming the moral darkness of 
the heathen world. Are we willing to do our part and 
trust God to do His? Whatever may be one's views as to 
the wisdom of missionary work and the validity of other 
motives for engaging in missionary efforts, no one who 
believes the Bible can doubt God's power to overcome sin 
and heathen superstition when those who have the gospel 
heed the Saviour's last great command and give God the 
right of way. "All authority hath been given unto me 
in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore." The Church 
must go trusting in the divine power and the divine wis- 
dom and willing to follow where God leads the way. 

It is plain if the missionary enterprise of the Church 
is to continue through the years and be carried on with 
increased zeal and energy, the motives which impel the 
people to such effort, as another has very clearly expressed 
it, must be strong, self-justifying, permanent and Scrip- 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 39 

tural. That many of the old arguments for missions and 
some of the new ones now being urged are neither per- 
manent nor Scriptural can easily be shown. The grounds 
mentioned in the opening of this chapter afford a good il- 
lustration of what I mean. All of them are strong and self- 
justifying, but some of them are neither permanent nor 
Scriptural. A careful analysis of the Scriptures herein 
quoted leads to the conclusion that the two great motives 
for missionary enterprise are: First, because of what mis- 
sionary effort means to Jesus Christ who made salvation 
possible for all men by His death upon the cross, and, sec- 
ond, because of what missionary enterprise means to us who 
have the gospel of Christ. In proportion as we appreciate 
what Christ's salvation means to us will we be interested 
in giving that salvation to others. If we esteem our salva- 
tion as an incalcuable blessing, we will be anxious that 
all men should have that blessing; but if we place little 
value upon our religion, we will not be likely to have 
much interest in giving a knowledge of it to others at 
home or abroad. 

In the words of Dr. William Newton Clarke: "God's 
best and richest gift appreciated brings its own call to 
missionary endeavor. Hence the missionary impulse de- 
pends for its vitality upon the vigor of the Christian life 
in the Christian people. Only a living Church can per- 
manently be a strong missionary Church, for only a living 
Church can feel the value of its blessings and be impelled 
to offer them to the world. " 

In the light of these Scriptural motives the argument 
that is so often made against missions, viz., that the 
heathen may have another chance, counts for nothing, for 



4 o THE OLD GOSPEL 

the Bible answers, that this is our only chance to give them 
the blessings we have. This is our only chance to obey 
the Saviour's command: — "Go ye." Disobedience may 
not mean the eternal death of the heathen, but it may 
mean, yea, it does mean, disobedience on our part and con- 
sequent loss of God's favor and co-operation. The first 
essential for an active, aggressive missionary propaganda 
is a strong, vigorous, spiritually awakened Church at 
home. The Church at home must be depended upon to 
furnish the base of supplies. The missionaries, the money 
and the inspiration to evangelize the world must be fur- 
nished by the church in the homeland for a long time yet 
to come. 

"Put it first — the great commission, 
Put it first — the great command; 
Put it first — our standing orders, 
Put it first — on sea and land. 
Put it first — 'twill draw us closer, 
Put it first — 'twill banish strife; 
Put it first — the rest will follow; 
Put it first — 'twill bless our life." 

In the light of all that has been said is it not very plain 
and clear what Saint Paul meant when he wrote to the 
Ephesians, saying: "And He gave some to be apostles; 
and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, 
pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints, unto 
the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body 
of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, 
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full- 
grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness 
of Christ?" 



FIGURING OUT THE PROFITS IN A LOSING 

GAME 



"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the 
whole world, and lose his own soul?" — Mark 8:36. 

"Seek thyself only in Christ, and not in thyself; so wilt 
thou find thyself in Him for eternity.'' — Luther. 



FIGURING OUT THE PROFITS IN A LOSING 

GAME 

IF you and I had never seen a Bible before and were 
to have come upon this question, — "What doth it 
profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit 
his life?" — out of its connection, we would no 
doubt have been a good deal surprised to learn that it was 
the language of a young Jew who lived nearly two thou- 
sand years ago. It sounds as if it were the language of a 
sagacious, long-headed business man of our own genera- 
tion. "What doth it profit?" is a very modern question, 
we are apt to think. It breathes the spirit of the twentieth 
century. It is about the first question that is asked in 
regard to any enterprise. It matters not whether it is the 
digging of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama or the 
building of a transcontinental railroad or the opening of 
a new bank or the endowing of a college or a hospital or 
the starting of a little mission church out on the frontier, 
the question at once comes up — "What will it profit?" 
Now I do not say that the spirit is wrong that prompts 
the asking of that question: what I do find fault with is 
that we do not make enough of the question. We do not 
ask it often enough or with enough seriousness. It is a 
very legitimate question and should be asked not only in 
regard to our business ventures but also in regard to our 
beliefs and our moral actions. What doth it profit a 
man to believe in the inspiration of the Bible? What doth 
it profit a man to believe in the immortality of the soul? 

43 



44 THE OLD GOSPEL 

What doth it profit a man to believe in the divinity of 
Christ? These are questions of greater moment than 
those before mentioned ; but men are not asking these 
questions with as much concern as they ask what it will 
profit where dollars and cents are concerned. What does 
it profit a man to lead a clean, moral, upright life, is 
a more important question than, what does it profit a 
man to invest money in any kind of earthly securities? 

From the view-point of this world alone, to say nothing 
of the future, it is always profitable to live up to one's 
highest ideals and to believe those time-honored doctrines 
that have come down to us from the wisest and best minds 
of the past ages. If it could really be proven that belief 
in these teachings of the Christian faith did not produce 
the kind of character that counts for most in this life, 
we might disregard these teachings; but the combined 
efforts of freethinkers and atheists have failed to show that 
disbelief in these great fundamental doctrines of Jesus 
develops better men and women. The superiority ot oui 
Christian civilization to the civilizations of the non-Chris- 
tian world would seem to create a strong presumption that 
these Christian doctrines have a positive value for this 
life. If one casts aside these teachings as of no value what 
has he gained ? 

This passage affords a good illustration of how easy it 
is for us to read into the Bible what the Divine Author 
never intended us to get out of the Bible. The text is 
often interpreted as if it were meant to teach that every 
one must make a choice between gaining the world and 
losing his soul. That if one gains the good things of the 
world or makes an effort to gain the things of this world 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 45 

he is sure to lose his soul. I, for one, do not believe 
that our Saviour meant to set any such alternative 
before men. I believe that God intends the good 
things of this world for His children, and the more 
rapidly the world and its wealth pass into the hands 
of the followers of Christ the better it will be for 
all concerned. I believe it is the duty of every true child 
of God to make an honest effort to get just as much of 
this world's goods as he can get honestly, and then use 
it in the service of his Lord. It does not seem reasonable 
to me that God has created the world with all its wealth 
and treasure for the wicked. It is the plain duty of every 
Christian to be thrifty and industrious and to get all that 
he can ; for are we not told that the righteous shall inherit 
the earth and that the kingdoms of this world are to 
become the kingdoms of our Lord? 

This passage is also sometimes interpreted as if it taught 
that by giving up the world one could save his soul. There 
can be no more dangerous error than this. That was the 
mistake made by the monks of the dark ages, who thought 
that by withdrawing from the world and shutting them- 
selves up in old monasteries or in the cloisters they could 
save their souls. It is not by asceticism or withdrawing 
from the world that we are to be saved, but by personal 
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who when he was here on 
earth did not withdraw from the world but went about 
doing good. And did He not say, "I have given you an 
example, that ye also should do as I have done?" Our 
salvation is not determined by whether we have much or 
little of this world in our possession. It is not, in the 
last analysis, a question of one's bank account, but it is a 



46 THE OLD GOSPEL 

question of character, and character is determined by our 
attitude toward Christ and His moral ideals. 

Just what, then, did the Master intend us to under- 
stand by this question ? This : That a man or a woman 
makes a bad bargain when he or she barters away his or 
her eternal interests for the sake of some temporal advan- 
tage. "The things which are seen are temporal, but the 
things which are not seen are eternal." Somewhere be- 
tween the cradle and the grave Satan appears to each one 
of us as he appeared to our Lord, and shows us the king- 
doms of this world and the glory of them, and says, "All 
these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship 
me." To some the temptation comes often, to some only 
once, but it comes to all, and one makes a serious mistake 
when he surrenders conscience or character for the sake 
of worldly gain. 

There are spiritual things that money cannot buy. In 
Irving Bacheller's book, "Eben Holden," there is a senti- 
ment expressed by the old poet of the woods which has a 
world of truth in it that w-e ought never to forget: 

"There's a money of the soul, my boy, ye'll find in after 

years ; 
Its pennies are the sweat-drops and its dollars are the 

tears ; 
And love is the redeemin' gold that measures what they're 

worth, 
And ye'll git as much in heaven as yeVe given out on 

earth. 

"For the record o' yer doin' I believe the soul is planned 
With an automatic register to tell jist how ye stand, 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 47 

And it won't take any cipherin' to show that fearful day, 
If ye've multiplied yer talents well or thrown 'em all 
away." 

I have read of a child playing by the seashore who found 
a pretty stone which she traded to a young sailor for a 
glass prism. Through the glass the white ray of sunlight 
was broken into all the beautiful colors of the rainbow, 
but it was only a piece of glass and nothing more couid 
be made of it. The stone which she bartered away for 
this piece of glass was a rare agate capable of being ground 
by the lapidary into a gem fit to be placed in the crown 
of a king. God has intrusted to each individual an im- 
mortal soul with capabilities surpassing those of the agate, 
and multitudes are bartering their souls away for the 
tinsel of time that is as worthless as the piece of glass which 
the child received for the agate. 

"What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world 
and forfeit his life?" 

But the passage throws an interesting light upon Christ's 
estimate of the value of the soul in relation to other things. 
It is the thing of supreme value, because it is the im- 
mortal part of man. When the body with all its strength 
and beauty has returned to dust the soul will live on either 
with Christ in glory or shut out from the presence of God 
for ever. The soul is of supreme value when compared 
with the wealth of this world because God alone can create 
a soul. Men create fortunes with their own hands and 
skill and wisdom, and a fortune if lost may be regained 
by toil and industry; but a soul once lost is lost for evei. 
The value of the soul in comparison with other things is 



48 THE OLD GOSPEL 

seen in the fact that Christ died to redeem it. He would 
not have left His home with the Father for all the material 
wealth of the world, but to save a soul He left all and 
came to our earth and died upon the cross on Calvary. 

"What doth it profit a man?" The word profit im- 
plies something invested. There can be no profit where 
there is nothing invested. A man may have a house and 
lot given to him and may sell it for several thousand dol- 
lars, but there was no per cent, of profit because there 
was nothing invested. The serious question is, what 
kind of investments are we making? Are we in- 
vesting for time or for eternity — for God or for 
self? If we are investing our talents, our time and our 
energies, for God and for eternity, our dividends will be 
in kind ; but if we are investing our talents, our time and 
our strength, for the here and the now, the dividends will 
be of the kind that must be left here when the soul goes 
to render its final account at the bar of God. 

"What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world 
and forfeit his life?" It is a principle in business that 
it is not the amount of the original investment that deter- 
mines the ultimate profits, so much as the character of the 
investment. A man may invest a million dollars in such 
a way that at the end of twenty years he will be a bank- 
rupt. On the other hand one may invest a thousand 
dollars in such a way that at the end of twenty years he 
will be a millionaire. This principle holds in our moral 
and spiritual investments. It is not so much the original 
endowment with which we start in life that determines 
the ultimate profits as it is the use we make of our endow- 
ment. A little invested for God may bring greater profit 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 49 

than a great deal invested for self. 

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, 
where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break 
through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in 
heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and 
where thieves do not break through nor steal; for where 
thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also." 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORKING MAN OF 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 



"The lab ore?' is worthy of his reward!' — / Timothy 

5 :i8. 

"Labor troubles come as the result of an advancing 
civilization. Social unrest is sometimes an indication of 
social progress. There are no labor troubles in Darkest 
Africa. Therefore the cloud on the industrial horizon has 
its silver lining, if one will but look for it." — Charles 
Stelzle. 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORKING MAN OF 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

LABOR lies at the foundation of all true pros- 
perity and progress. We have here in this 
country of ours fertile soil, valuable quarries, 
rich mines, and extensive forests of valuable 
timber. Our resources of every kind are abundant, but 
without labor these resources are of little or no value to 
anybody. Fields must be cultivated, mines and quarries 
must be developed, forests cleared away, and their prod- 
ucts transformed into things useful to man. 

As the working class rises in the scale of prosperity 
and intelligence all other classes are benefited and the inter- 
ests of the country advanced. The working people are 
the foundation upon which must be raised the superstruc- 
ture of the nation's prosperity. They are the backbone of 
the national wealth. Given an intelligent, industrious and 
thrifty working class, and all other classes will be im- 
proved. Given a poor, poorly paid and hopeless working 
class, with the life crushed out of them, and all other 
classes will be dragged down. 

The countries and nations that have done most to pro- 
tect the laborer in his rights and to secure to him the just 
reward of his toil have grown rapidly in wealth and in- 
fluence; while those nations that have oppressed the toiler 
have invariably suffered in consequence. 

To prove this you have only to contrast England, Ger- 
many and America with Russia, Turkey and Old Mexico. 

53 



54 THE OLD GOSPEL 

In England, for more than a hundred years, laws have 
been enacted looking toward the betterment of the work- 
ing class. In Germany I think the same thing is true. 
Even better laws to protect the interests of the working- 
man are to be found in Germany to-day than perhaps in 
any other country. For the last forty or fifty years there 
has been an upward tendency in the kind of laws enacted 
in the interests of the working people of this country. 
To-day the working man gets from 50% to 100% more 
wages for 20% less time than he did fifty years ago. 

In Russia, in Turkey and in Old Mexico the laborer 
is poorly paid. He is a peasant, or peon, or little better 
than slave. 

Somewhere I think I have read this statement, and I 
suspect it is true: In Old Mexico lead and zinc ore 
can be mined and sold at a profit, for $13 a ton, while in 
the Carthage, Mo., district lead and zinc ore cannot be 
mined at a profit for less than $38 a ton. The difference 
is not so much in the condition of the mines, as it is in the 
difference in the workingmen. Those men are living on 
food that we would not feed to our dogs. The working- 
man is better paid, is better housed and is better clothed 
in the United States than he is in Mexico. 

There are two erroneous theories that must be carefully 
guarded against in any serious consideration of the subject 
of capital and labor. 

One of these erroneous theories is that labor is only 
a commodity to be bought at the lowest possible price 01 
to be sold to the highest bidder. This is an erroneous 
theory held by many men who employ labor. They say, 
"Why, labor is just a commodity like any other com- 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 55 

modity, to be bought at the lowest price, or to be sold to 
the highest bidder." They forget that back of the com- 
modity is a man; that labor is a commodity plus an im- 
mortal soul; that it is different from every other com- 
modity in the fact that back of the thing sold there is an 
intelligent being created in the image of God. 

The man who sells a ton of hay has no interest in the 
ton of hay beyond getting the market price. It does not 
make any difference to him where that ton of hay is used 
or how it is used. The man who sells a load of wheat, 
when he gets the market price for the wheat, does not care 
whether it is ground into flour or turned into a cereal or 
what use it is put to. He gets the market price and it 
is all the same to him. 

Not so, to the man who has labor to sell. It may make 
all the difference in the world to him and to his children 
and to the community at large what is done with his 
labor. He has no business to sell that commodity where 
it is to be used under circumstances that will injure the 
community, or that will maim or cripple himself need- 
lessly, or that will work an injury to himself or his family 
or to the State. 

The other fallacy is one often held by the working- 
man, viz., that all wealth is produced by physical labor. 
In talking with working men I have heard that statement 
made again and again. "All wealth is produced by the 
toil of the laborer.' ' 

The man who makes the assertion forgets that the man 
of capital furnishes all material, the tools and appliances, 
without which his labor would be worthless. 

Let us suppose a case like this: Suppose that in your 



56 THE OLD GOSPEL 

own town or village are a dozen men, carpenters, good 
workmen, splendid skilled workmen. They have very 
poor tools and a very small amount of capital, a little 
credit. They can buy a little bit of lumber here and there 
and pay for it and make a certain amount of furniture 
which they sell at a fair profit and make a living. 
But there is not much demand for that furniture in the 
town, and so there is not much of it sold, and they make a 
poor living. Then comes a man with $25,000 and puts 
up a factory. He equips it with the very best of modern 
machinery. He employs an expert advertiser to write 
advertisements for the papers and magazines. He employs 
five or six travelling salesmen to go out over the country 
and talk up these goods and create a market. The carpen- 
ters do not make the market. The man with the capital has 
made it possible for these men to do five times as much 
work in a day or month or a year as they were doing 
before, and to do a better grade of work, and to create 
a market for their work. Would you say that it was the 
workingman who created the market for that factory? 
Part of it. Would you say that it was the man with the 
capital ? Part of it. Would you say it was the travelling 
salesmen who went out and created the market? Part 
of it. Or was it the man of genius who wrote the adver- 
tisements for these magazines and papers that opened up 
the way for the travelling men? Part of it. They all 
worked together, and they must work together. 

I saw a little story in one of the papers lately. It may 
be true or it may be just a legend or a fable. I do not 
know. I do not care whether it is true or not true, but 
it illustrates the point I am trying to make better than 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 57 

anything else I can think of. The fable or legend 
as I remember it was something like this: Once 
upon a time there was an ambitious little city in 
Southwest Missouri, and in this little city there was 
a young mechanic who worked in a garage. He con- 
ceived the idea that he could improve automobile trucks. 
He tried to interest some capitalists in that little city in 
Southwest Missouri in his idea, but they either did not 
have snap enough about them or something was wrong. 
They didn't take to his idea at all. Then he went into 
Texas and there interested some people who put up 
$50,000, and they built a factory and in a few months 
there were 800 men employed in that factory. And now 
this same mechanic who was making $2 or $3 a day in 
the garage in this enterprising little city in Southwest 
Missouri is getting $10,000 a year as manager of that 
business in Texas. 

Who created the wealth of that business? The 800 
men who are working in the factory? Well, if it had not 
been for the man with the idea, those men might be tramp- 
ing over the country hunting a job. And but for the men 
with the $50,000 this mechanic's idea would not have 
amounted to anything. Was it the men with the $50,000 
who created the wealth? Not altogether, for without 
the eight hundred men, and without the man of genius, 
their money might have been bringing them 3% interest 
in some bank or in Government bonds perhaps, but it 
would not have been producing the dividends which, ac- 
cording to this story, are being produced to-day. 

What is the point I am trying to make? Simply this: 
The wealth of the world is not produced alone by phy- 



58 THE OLD GOSPEL 

sical toil; nor is it alone produced by capital, by the men 
who furnish materials and tools and buildings; nor is 
it alone produced by the men of genius. But here are 
the three factors: Genius, money and toil. They are 
bound inseparably together. They are the factors that 
produce wealth, and without the co-operation of all three 
of them no wealth can be produced. You must have the 
three factors working together. The man of inventive 
genius, the man of executive ability, and the man who 
has the ability to organize great forces are as indispen- 
sable as the man with the millions, and the capitalist is 
as indispensable as the man with the pick and shovel or 
the man with the hammer. The business of a country 
can only be carried on when these three classes stand 
shoulder to shoulder and face to face with each other as 
men who, in the fear of God, recognize that they are 
created by one common Father, are responsible to the 
same God, and redeemed by the same blood of Christ, and 
that they must share with each other in the great work 
of producing the wealth of the nation. 

All this being true, society owes it to the working- 
man to secure to him the best possible conditions in which 
he may serve the public. 

First, it must afford him protection against accident 
and disease as far as possible. 

We shrink with horror from the awful atrocities of 
ancient rites where human lives were offered up in 
sacrifice on Druid altars. We are appalled at the awful 
slaughter in a war between Russia and Japan, or the 
Civil War here in our own country a few years ago. 
But is it generally known that the death-roll of industry 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 59 

in the United States is greater than the death-roll of any 
war in history prior to the present war in Europe? 

In the modern industrial enterprises of the United 
States 525,000 human lives are sacrificed every year. 
That is 200,000 more than the entire number slain on both 
sides during the war between Japan and Russia. 

In the course of four years, in these times of peace, 
there are 80,000 more violent deaths in the United States 
in the ranks of industry than there were lives lost on 
both sides during the four years of the Civil War. 

Let me analyze these figures a little further. Last 
year there were 5,000 violent deaths in the anthracite coal- 
mines of Pennsylvania. 94,200 railway employes lost 
their lives while at the post of duty. 425,000 people lost 
their lives in the manufacturing and building industries 
in this country in a single year. 

Some of these lives were sacrificed upon the altar of 
progress. No amount of precaution could have availed 
to prevent some of these deaths, as in the tunnelling under 
the river in New York a short time ago where the work 
was of such a character that it was a foregone conclusion 
before they went to work that a large per cent, of them 
must lay down their lives, or in the matter of navigating 
the air. There has been an awful death-rate among the 
men who sail these air-ships. These lives are laid upon 
the altar of science and progress, sacrificed to the advance- 
ment of civilization. 

But many of these 525,000 lives were sacrificed on the 
altar of carelessness — carelessness either of the individual 
himself, or of a fellow-servant or of the general public 
or of the corporation for which he was working. 



60 THE OLD GOSPEL 

But a still larger per cent, of these 525,000 lives were 
sacrificed to the demon of greed and avarice. Men are 
required to work in insanitary conditions, in the midst of 
dust or steel filings or fine bits of glass flying about in 
places where cut glass is made, or in places where there 
are poisonous gases or fumes of acids or in a factory 
where dangerous machinery is allowed to be exposed need- 
lessly — sacrifices to the demon of greed! 

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, three lives are sacrificed 
in the production of every 10,000 tons of coal; one life 
goes out for the production of every 70,000 tons of steel 
rails; and one for every 7,600 tons of steel. 

Are these sacrificed upon the altar of progress? No. 
Are they sacrificed on the altar of carelessness? Some of 
them. But the majority of them are laid down upon the 
altar of greed, because it is cheaper to kill men than to 
protect life by expensive devices or safety appliances. Ex- 
perts capable of passing judgment on this matter have 
given it as their unbiased opinion that the majority of 
these lives have been sacrificed because it was cheaper to 
kill men than to safeguard their lives by the use of ex- 
pensive safety devices and appliances. 

The permission of preventable accidents ought to be 
counted a crime against society as well as against the 
individual injured. It is a crime against society as well 
as against the individual, for it not only injures the indi- 
vidual, who is killed, or maimed for life, but it entails a 
burden upon his family. It increases the number of pau- 
pers and dependent persons who have to be cared for by 
the public at large. There is no State in the Union where 
a man would be permitted by law, for a money considera- 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 61 

tion, to allow himself to be crippled for life. It is against 
the best interests of society; and men should not be 
allowed to engage in work under circumstances where they 
might needlessly be crippled through the criminal care- 
lessness of the employer who refuses to safeguard the lives 
of his employes by proper appliances that may be had for 
money. 

John Mitchell never uttered a greater truth than the 
following statement, and it should be proclaimed from 
one end of this land to the other: 

"No country, however powerful or formidable, can be 
counted truly great which does not hold important the 
life and happiness of its citizens, even if they be the hum- 
blest of untrained working-men or the least of the little 
children in the factories." 

Society ought to share the burden and the responsibility 
of the loss of life or limb in the industrial service of the 
country. It is not fair that the workers and their families 
should bear all of the burden of the loss resulting from 
accident in the ranks of industry. Indeed they are the 
last who should be expected to bear the burden. Usually 
they work for merely a living wage, and when accident 
comes, if it be the bread-winner, it means that all of the 
children must be taken from school to earn bread, or that 
the family become objects of charity. 

It would not always be right that the men in whose 
employ a worker loses his life or is maimed for life should 
bear the whole burden of responsibility. If it can be 
shown that the accident resulted from any carelessness on 
the employer's part, or from a failure to provide for the 
safety of the men in his employ, then he should be held 



62 THE OLD GOSPEL 

responsible. I am not lawyer enough to pass judgment 
upon the law in regard to the employer's liability for the 
carelessness of a fellow-servant. I know that if employ- 
ers had always to pay an indemnity for the loss of life or 
limb, this law would be prohibitive in some lines of busi- 
ness, for the indemnity would be so great that it would 
put the man or the corporation out of business. 

But is there not another remedy? Who gets the benefit 
of the toil of these men who work in the factories and 
in the mills? The public. In the old days of individual 
initiative, when a man had a little shop and employed three 
or four or half a dozen men, there was not much danger 
of accident or loss of life. But in the great mills and 
factories where five to ten thousand are employed, ac- 
cidents are of common occurrence. What do these great 
organizations mean to the public? They mean cheaper 
goods of every kind and the public is the beneficiary. Is 
it right then that the corporation employing the men or 
that the men themselves should bear the burden of these 
accidents ? 

The nation pensions its maimed and crippled soldiers 
and their widows and orphans because of service rendered 
in time of war. Are times of war more important than 
times of peace? Why, then, should not a nation provide 
pensions for those who have been crippled and maimed 
in the ranks of industry? 

When men have bared their breast to the cannon and 
faced powder and shot and shell, the Government rec- 
ognizes that they have done a heroic thing, and it pro- 
vides in pensions something for them when they have been 
crippled and for their widows and orphans. 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 63 

The men who have bared their breasts to the cannon 
and gone out to face powder and shot and bayonets are 
not braver men nor more heroic than the men who go 
down into the mines and up on the high buildings, who 
work on the sky-scrapers in the great cities. These are 
the true heroes. These are the men who are showing 
courage day by day; and the Government should make 
provision for them, and the people should not begrudge 
the slight addition it would make to the taxes, to provide 
the pensions. 

Society owes it to the workers in all branches of in- 
dustry to safeguard the laws relating to contracts defining 
the hours of work, the place of payment of wages, and the 
frequency of payment of wages. 

In small establishments it does not make much dirler- 
ence whether the workers are paid once a week or once a 
month, either to the employe or the employer; but in the 
great establishment employing from a thousand to seven 
thousand men, where the pay-roll is from $100,000 to 
$300,000 per month, it may make a world of difference 
to the toilers and it certainly makes a great difference to 
the corporation employing them. The interest of $250,000 
or $300,000 for a month is quite an item, and if they can 
withold payment from month to month they make quite 
a little on the interest. 

I have heard of such an instance as this, where men 
are employed at simply a living wage and paid once a 
month, and as long as they keep their health and every- 
thing goes all right, they get along; but if sickness comes 
and they have a physician's and a nurse-bill to pay they 
begin to run behind; and then the company offers to 



64 THE OLD GOSPEL 

pay them each week, provided they will take from 60% 
to 75% of the wages contracted for. The law ought not 
to permit such a condition to exist. In a great corpora- 
tion where large numbers of people are employed they 
should be paid weekly. "The laborer is worthy of his 
reward," and is worthy of his reward when the money 
is earned. 

But the place of payment is quite as important to the 
working-man and his family as anything else. It ought to 
be against the law to pay men in places where there is a 
temptation to squander the money. 

There is a little city of 18,000 population in Illinois 
where there are several large factories employing about two 
thousand men. The men are paid twice a month. Salaries 
or wages range from $1.75 a day to $100 a week for 
some of the skilled workmen. These men are paid at 
five o'clock on Saturday night at the office of the com- 
pany, or at their two offices, and facing those two offices 
are six saloons. It is five o'clock in the evening when 
the men are paid, and the banks are closed. But the 
saloons are open with money on hand to cash the checks. 
And many of the men, rather than wait till Monday for 
the banks to open, when they will be busy again at their 
work, go into these saloons and cash their checks. 

While the pay-roll of the Company in that town is 
$80,000 a month, from 25% to 30% goes back into the till 
of the Company over the saloon bar. The men get their 
drinks on credit, and of course when they go in there 
to cash their checks it means that they will spend more 
money. We say the pay-roll of $80,000 a month is a big 
thing, but really the pay-roll is not over $60,000 for 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 65 

$20,000 goes back into the till of the saloon-keeper, into 
the coffers of the men who employ the laborers. This 
ought to be against the law. 

Experience and observation have proven that it cannot 
be safely left to the general public to see to it that the 
laborer always gets a just reward for his labor or fair 
treatment from the corporation employing him. Organiza- 
tion is necessary on the part of the workers to secure and 
protect the rights of the industrial class. 

I believe there is Scriptural ground for this statement. 
I read in Scripture: "Two are better than one; because 
they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, 
the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is 
alone when he falleth, and hath not another to lift him 
up." — Eccles. 4:9, 10. 

In this day of great aggregations of capital, or com- 
binations that we call trusts, what chance does the indi- 
vidual worker have in settling any kind of a difficulty? 
He may not like the conditions under which he has to 
work at his trade. What does the corporation care? It 
can get plenty of other men. 

So it is necessary for the working-man to join hands 
with his fellow-workers. It is necessary that those who 
belong to the same trades or occupations should be organ- 
ized and stand together in the defence of their rights. 

Let us consider briefly some of the benefits that have 
been secured to the working class by means of organized 
labor. One of them is shorter hours of service. John 
Mitchell has this to say in — "Organized Labor:" 

"The success of organized labor in increasing the wages 
of working-men has been brilliant and signal, but it has 



66 THE OLD GOSPEL 

not been more important than the success in reducing the 
hours of labor. An increase in the wages means moit 
of the comforts and luxuries of life; a decrease in the 
hours, the opportunity to enjoy these comforts and lux- 
uries. The shortening of the working day further stands 
for the freedom from toil at the time when it becomes 
most exacting, nerve-wearing and dangerous; still further 
it stands for leisure, recreation, education and family 
life. During the nineteenth century American trade 
unions diminished the length of the working day from 
twelve hours, and in some cases fourteen, to ten, nine and 
finally eight hours." 

Again, organized labor has reduced the amount of child- 
labor and given better sanitary conditions in the mills and 
factories. According to the report of the United States 
Census, we have these figures: 

In 1880 6.55% of industrial workers were children 
under fourteen years of age. In 1890 2.68% were chil- 
dren under the age of fourteen years. In the State of 
Connecticut the proportion has been reduced from 7.43% 
to 2.10%; in Massachusetts from 4.92% to 1.84%; and in 
Illinois the proportion of children has been reduced from 
6.17% to 1.83%. If union effort had done nothing else 
than reduce the child-labor, as it has in Illinois, and 
bring about better sanitary conditions in the mills and 
factories, it would be worth while. 

Another object that ought to be kept before the mind 
of working-men in their unions, and I think is being kept 
before the mind in many unions, is the effort of the union 
to produce greater skill and effectiveness on the part of 
the worker. 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 67 

There was a time when the union seemed to go on 
the theory that "A man was a man for a' that." Whether 
he could do the work or not, they sought to bring up 
to a common level and demand the same wage for every 
man. But through the leadership of John Mitchell many 
unions have come to see the fallacy of that idea, and that 
skill and effectiveness and ability to do things ought to 
count, ought to stand for something. The unions ought 
to inculcate that idea, and many of them are endeavoring 
to make skill and effectiveness stand for a better wage 
and a better position. 

There are three facts that should be clearly under- 
stood and constantly kept in mind, and with this I close. 

First: That changes and reforms that help the cause 
of labor should be sought by evolution rather than by 
revolution. 

This is the day of books and reading. Five hundred 
years ago the average toiler could not read or write. 
To-day the working-man goes back and forth on the 
trolley car to his work reading his daily paper and dis- 
cussing the political issues and the labor question and 
other great questions with as much statesmanship as the 
men we send to Congress. 

Reforms should be sought by enlightenment, by the use 
of the printed page, by the lecture platform, by the pulpit, 
and by every means that will help to enlighten and educate 
and train men. 

As I said in the beginning, there are three factors that 
make for progress, the toiler, the organizer and the man 
with money. These three must understand each other, and 
they must work in harmony, or they cripple each other and 



68 THE OLD GOSPEL 

cripple the nation in its pursuit of wealth and happiness; 
hence every improvement should be by evolution rather 
than by revolution. Whenever men, whether they be 
working-men or capitalists, resort to brute force, to dyna- 
mite, to acts of violence of which the general public dis- 
approves, they injure the cause, whether it be the cause 
of capital or the cause of labor. 

Second : Anything that fosters a class spirit and arrays 
one class against another, anything that tends to array 
*he workers against the capitalists, or the organizer, or 
the man of genius who has invented things ; anything that 
cripples the wealth of the nation, is a mistake and works 
injury to the cause of industry. 

Anything that fosters a class spirit is wrong anywhere, 
whether in the church or in politics, or in labor circles 
or anywhere else. 

Third: Let me assure you that the church is not the 
foe but the friend of the working-man. 

There are many working-men who believe just the 
opposite. I suppose I met one of these one evening 
in handing out an invitation card to attend church, for 
with a bitter oath, he said he didn't go to such places. 
Well, I knew by the language he used, that he didn't 
go to church. But that man perhaps is laboring under the 
delusion that the church is the foe of the working-man. 

I want to remind you, fellow workers, for I work as 
many hours as any man, that the first great defender of 
the labor cause proclaimed his reforms from the carpen- 
ter's bench. 

Jesus Christ was the first labor reformer and he pro- 
claimed his message from the carpenter's bench in Naz- 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 69 

areth. 

Although we live in strenuous times, in the midst of 
gigantic enterprises and mighty problems, we ought to 
be thankful that we have these problems to face. We 
ought to be thankful that we live in the twentieth century 
when there are problems worthy the courage of a man. 

Let us not be discouraged because there seem sometimes 
insurmountable difficulties. 

"Be strong. 
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift ; 
We have hard work to do and loads to lift. 
Shun not the struggle, face it; 'tis God's gift; 

Be strong, be strong. 
Say not the days are evil, Who's to blame? 
And fold the hands in acquiescence, — O, shame! 
Stand up, speak out, and bravely in God's name 

Be strong. 
It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong, 
How hard the battle goes, the day how long; 
Faint not, fight on, to-morrow comes the song." 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF CHRISTIANITY 
AS A NATIONAL ASSET 



"Offer unto God Thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto 
the Most High" — Psalm 50:14. 

"Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His 
courts with praise; be thankful unto Him and bless His 
name" — Psalm 100:4. 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF CHRISTIANITY 
AS A NATIONAL ASSET 

1HAVE read somewhere in English history of an 
old castle in which there was said to be a golden 
table, around which twelve royal knights, clad in 
golden armor, were accustomed to sit and quaff 
delicious wine from golden goblets. This, no doubt, is 
the creation of fancy or the product of superstitious imag- 
ination, but it suggests to my mind that there is a stately 
castle the foundation of which was laid by the Pilgrim 
Fathers on the rock-bound shores of New England. In 
architectural grandeur it far surpasses any of the famous 
castles of the old world. Its floor is a rich mosaic of 
gold and silver, iron, copper, tin, lead, zinc, and coal. It 
has an area of more than three million six hundred thou- 
sand square miles of surface, and is capable of accommo- 
dating more than five hundred millions of people. In each 
of its forty-eight rooms, there is spread on the last Thurs- 
day in November, by the authority of our honored Chief 
Magistrate, a golden table of thanksgiving; around this 
table the knights and ladies of the twentieth century, clad 
in the white robes of civil and religious liberty are in- 
vited to come and partake of the sweet nectar of worship 
from the golden goblet of God's Providence. From the 
day on which the corner stone of our national castle was 
laid, this table has been spread as an annual feast of 
thanksgiving in some of the States, and for fully half a 
century it has been a national custom. It is distinctly an 

73 



74 THE OLD GOSPEL 

American custom and as such should be fondly cherished 
by every true American. 

It is not with the origin and history of thanksgiving day 
that I wish to interest you in this chapter. It is not of 
our growth and prosperity as a nation that I wish to speak, 
nor do I mean to recall the mercies of God and the in- 
numerable blessings He has bestowed upon us during the 
past year, although each of these subjects is of great inter- 
est to us all. 

The theme to which I now invite your attention is, 
''The Practical Value of Thanksgiving Day to the Na- 
tion." 

We are living in an intensely busy and practical age. 
Men are not so much concerned with the past as with the 
present and the future. Our age does not ask of men who 
have been their ancestors and what their family history; 
but it puts the blunt question. What can you do? What 
are you good for now? So also of institutions, our age 
asks, What is their practical value? What can they do 
for humanity? These questions it asks of higher educa- 
tion, of modern inventions, in fact of every thing; hence 
the propriety of the theme. What is the value of our Na- 
tional Thanksgiving Day? 

First: It keeps before the public mind the truth that 
God reigns among the kingdoms of men. 

Second: It strengthens family ties. 

Third : It binds the Nation closer in its allegiance to 
the Lord Jesus Christ, the true king of Nations. 

First: It keeps before the public mind the truth that 
God reigns, and just so long as this truth is kept clearly 
before the minds of the rising generations are we secure; 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 75 

but whenever we lose sight of this fact our national glory 
will melt away like the sparkling frost on an autumn 
morning and our national greatness will crumble into dust. 
Aside from all considerations of religion, the belief in a 
personal, sovereign God is of inestimable value to every 
nation. It is a better protection to liberty than law and 
police regulations. It is a greater safeguard than walled 
cities and standing armies. "Rob men of their belief in 
a personal God, and you tear the throbbing heart out of a 
warm intelligent civilization and leave it a lifeless and 
worthless corpse." Take away the belief in a Divine 
Ruler, and the oath will no longer be sacred, the marriage 
ring will be forever broken, the sanctity of the home vio- 
lated and the reign of selfishness will be established. 
Under such conditions man will have no rights worthy of 
respect; law will become a dead letter; property a bone 
of contention, and religion a farce. 

Blot out the name of God from our language and the 
"Reign of Terror'' would be the result here in America 
as it was in France. Am I told that culture and mutual 
sympathy would be sufficient to protect society from the 
reign of Judge Lynch and mob law? As well might 
you tell me that you can remove the sun from the sky and 
illuminate the spheres in their wanderings through space 
by the light of a tallow candle. No, no, God, and God 
alone is the light of the w^orld. Wherever His name has 
been entirely forgotten you will find the very lowest 
condition of savage life. Where God's name is not known 
by men, your life is only safe when you are well armed. 
Brute force is the court of last resort where there is no 
God. I do not ask you to agree with me without first 



76 THE OLD GOSPEL 

weighing the evidence for what I say. When I tell you 
that to rob men of their belief in God is to establish the 
reign of anarchy, I call to witness the testimony of history. 
Here it is in the language of one who has made the history 7 
of infidelity a lifelong study. Dr. Scott F. Hershey whose 
book on the "Failure of Infidelity/' is worthy of careful 
perusal says, in speaking of the convention of French in- 
fidels who met and declared that they had abolished God 
and the Sabbath, "The assembly convened and revoked 
all law and order, and vested authority in the irresponsible 
classes. Mobs, riots, and communistic parties contested 
everything and went into the work of making laws with- 
out any idea of what the people needed. Paris was the 
victim of the legislation of mobism. To such excesses 
and blunders the Revolution is indebted for its existence. 
Words of awful meaning gather in that hour of unsettled 
society a dreadful significance. The prison rooms became 
frescoed with blood, and the prison walls spattered with 
brains. The pavements were reddened with blood and the 
gutters filled with the torn shreds of human flesh. The 
morning breeze and evening wind bore alike across the 
vine-clad hills of France the cries of suffering and the 
heart chilling shrieks of terror. Society was for the first 
time utterly disorganized. Property was confiscated. In 
the scales of that hour passion weighed heavier than life 
and hatred became a substitute for good will. Fear drove 
away the timid and fortitude brought the brave to execu- 
tion. Treachery, licentiousness, and libertinism har- 
nessed themselves to the iron-axled car of anarchy and 
drove ruin up and down the streets of Paris until thou- 
sands lost their lives in the prison, at the block, and on the 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 77 

guillotine. An injured humanity with angered conscience 
but discriminating judgment will ever point to the infidels 
of France and say 'Your work' and from that most pain- 
ful break in human progress whose darkness was only 
broken by the glare of blood and the flash of the guillo- 
tine knife, the infidels of France will have to answer 
'Our work/ " This is a dark picture but it 
is history. Now I ask you, do you want to see that history 
repeated on American soil? Then relegate to the old 
fogyism of the past your National Thanksgiving festival. 
Teach your children that all expressions of gratitude to 
God for the blessings of life are silly and only evince a 
weak mind. Teach your children that the Bible is only 
mythology, that religion is only superstition and that 
belief in God is fanaticism. But if you would continue 
to enjoy the blessings of peace and good government and 
the consolations of religion, adopt as the motto of your 
private life and the watchword of your national life the 
language of the Psalmist, "Offer unto God Thanksgiving 
and pay thy vows unto the Most High." 

Do you ask for more evidence on this point? Again I 
take up the volume of ancient history and looking back 
through it into the dim and shadowy past I behold the 
graveyard of nations now buried in ruins; I ask the cause 
of their desolation and ruin, and the answer comes back 
as an echo from the hills of divine Revelation: "The 
nation and the kingdom that will not serve God shall 
perish. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the 
nations that forget God." 

Looking back over the departed greatness of Egypt, 
Babylon, Nineveh, and Tyre, we behold one inscription 



78 THE OLD GOSPEL 

written over them all, and this is the writing, "God hath 
numbered thy kingdom and finished it." These nations 
forgot God, they ignored His law and trusted to material 
prosperity for their perpetuity and glory. Would you 
bury in a like oblivion this fair land of ours, then follow 
their example — Give up your Sabbath, your Thanksgiving 
and all those special days that call us to the worship of 
God; but if you would not share their fate I ask you to 
turn to God's own Book and learn a lesson in government 
from that king whose name will shine on history's scroll 
as long as time shall last. Turn to king David, and learn 
upon what the stability of government depends. "Offer 
unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most 
High" was his watchword. Let us pray to the God 
whom we adore that He will help us to follow the 
example of king David in keeping before the mind of the 
rising generation the truth that God reigns. 

Second: Our annual thanksgiving festival strengthens 
family ties. It is a day of grateful acknowledgment of 
our many mercies and blessings, both temporal and spirit- 
ual, but it is also a day of family reunions. 

As I write these words my thoughts take wings and fly 
back to the hills of Pennsylvania; in fancy I sit once more 
with the family circle at the old homestead. I recall the 
faces of old friends and acquaintances that were almost 
forgotten. I think of the playmates of my childhood, 
many of whom are now sleeping beneath the green sod ; 
I live over again the years of childhood and long for the 
simplicity and innocence of those happy years before my 
heart had tasted the bitterness of sin. In the midst of 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 79 

those scenes of bygone years my heart is touched and I am 
made better. Father and mother, brothers and sisters, 
and the old home are all dearer to me than they were 
before. I behold on the page of memory another spot 
more sacred even than the old home. I stand once more 
beside two little graves upon which the autumn leaves have 
fallen in the silent church yard, and my thoughts soar 
away to a brighter home where angel hands are beckoning 
me, and I hear sweet voices calling to me from the distant 
shore assuring me that there is a home in heaven for those 
who love their Redeemer. 

"Home of my childhood thou shalt ever be dear 
To the heart that so fondly revisits thee now, 
Though thy beauty be gone thy leaf in the sear, 
The wreathes of the past still cling to thy brow. 
Spirit of mine, why linger ye here 
Why cling to these hopes so futile and vain? 
Go, seek ye a home in that radient sphere 
Which through change and time thou shalt ever retain." 

I dwell upon these scenes of the past because all over 
this broad land there are those whose lives will be made 
happier and better on Thanksgiving day by the memory 
of home and friends and former thanksgiving days. But 
there is another class who may be influenced by the thanks- 
giving occasion ; I have in mind those who have no homes. 
There are many who have never known the joys of home. 
There are many who were turned out in helpless and 
tender childhood upon a cold, unfeeling, and heartless 
world. The return of this glad day should serve to 



80 THE OLD GOSPEL 

remind Christian people at least, that they owe a duty to 
these unfortunate ones of humanity. They are our broth- 
ers and our sisters, for, "God hath made of one blood all 
the nations of men to dwell upon all the face of the earth." 
Then again, there are those who have gone out from 
homes of plenty and comfort and love to plunge deep into 
the boiling sea of this world's wickedness, and drink to 
the dregs the cup of this world's woe. I have read some- 
where of a young man who had been reared in a Christian 
home with the best of moral surroundings, but who went 
out into the great world to seek his fortune and who 
gradually came to look upon the teachings of the family 
altar as not worth while, and who in time drifted far 
away from the religion of his father and mother. One 
night he wandered through the streets of Paris intoxi- 
cated. He came finally to a beautifully lighted house 
where he could see through the window a woman, and 
could hear her singing in the English tongue, "Home 
Sweet Home." He listened to the notes as they rose and 
fell upon the night air and at last when the song was 
over he turned to go home. But no, he had no home. 
The waves of the Atlantic rolled between him and the 
home of his childhood. The memory of that home ot 
other days came back to him and he knelt there in the 
street and gave his heart to God and became a new man 
in Christ Jesus. Let us hope and pray that many of 
these erring sons and misguided daughters will on next 
Thanksgiving day he brought to Christ and to a better life 
through the memory of home and past Thanksgiving days. 
In many homes families that have been separated for months 
and even for years will be reunited on Thanksgiving day ; 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 81 

their love for each other will be rekindled as they gather 
once more around the family table to partake of God's 
bounty. Family ties will be strengthened as they bow 
once more around the family altar for prayer. Some who 
met in these home circles last year will not be there this 
year, for they have crossed the dark river of death and 
are now on the other shore ; but the memory of the sainted 
dead calls us on Thanksgiving day to meet them in that 
home above. 

As we gather our families and friends around the well- 
filled table on this most hallowed day of all the year, 
let us remember that this day may be the last Thanksgiving 
day that we will ever spend together on earth. It may 
be that ere the wheel of time has brought another Thanks- 
giving day around we too may be among the number who 
sleep beneath the dust of the valley of death. These 
homes of ours are not permanent. Link, by link the family 
chain is broken off. One by one we are claimed by the 
grim messenger, Death. One by one we are called to cross 
the dark river alone. Let us then learn to love each other 
better. Let us learn to strengthen the ties of true friend- 
ship here and prepare for that better friendship over 
there. It should be borne in mind in this connection that 
whatever influences tend to ennoble the home life should 
be valued by us as priceless jewels. Whatever customs 
make the home better are of great practical value to the 
nation. The home is the center of those influences that 
shall be felt in the future history of our country. The 
home is the cradle of patriotism and the corner stone of 
the state. It is in the home that character is formed and 
if the stability of the state depends upon the good char- 



82 THE OLD GOSPEL 

acter of its citizens, how important does it become that 
these home centers where character is developed should 
be good. We do not expect to find grapes on thorns or to 
drink pure water from an impure fountain. No more can 
we expect to see pure and honest manhood and womanhood 
nourished in impure homes. Where parents are disloyal 
to God and hostile to all righteous authority, children 
aie very likely to follow in their footsteps. In the name 
of home and country I plead for a better and a more 
religious observance of Thanksgiving Day. 

Third: The setting apart of one day in the year to 
be religiously observed by all the people tends to quicken 
the spiritual pulse of the nation and bind us closer in our 
allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, the true King of 
Nations. 

When our Saviour was on trial before the Roman 
tribunal, Pilate asked the Jews what he should do with 
Jesus their king, and they answered, "Away with him, 
we have no king but Caesar." From that day Israel's 
glory faded away. As long as the Jewish nation pointed 
men to the coming Christ it flourished. God's hand 
guided the ship of empire and gave it prosperity, but when 
Israel rejected Christ it perished as a nation. So will it 
be with us or with any nation if we refuse to own Him 
as the rightful King. Whenever we as a people cease to 
observe our national Thanksgiving or permit it to degen- 
erate into a day of pleasure seeking and carousal, whenever 
we turn the Sabbath into a mere worldly holiday, when- 
ever we give up those institutions that do honor to Him, 
by so doing we say like the Jews of old, we have no king 
but Mammon. God the Father has given the providential 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 83 

government of the world into His hands and by Him 
the nations of the earth will be judged. So long as we 
are true and loyal to Christ and His cross He will be 
true to us. To offend Him is to offend our King. If 
we with our cold and unsympathetic hearts, feel the sting 
of pain when friends are ungrateful to us, what must be 
the feeling of our Saviour when men turn traitors to his 
cause ? Shakespeare represents King Lear as saying: "How 
sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless 
child." Now if a weak and thoughtless man like King 
Lear can say, "Tis sharper than a serpent's tooth to have 
a thankless child," what must be the feelings of a kind 
and loving Father in heaven, when He looks down to earth 
and sees thousands of thankless children, for whom Christ 
gave His life on the cross. To reject the cross is to 
desert the army of the living God. Christ, the captain 
of our salvation, is the greatest conquerer of all time. 
There have been many great names among the sons of 
men, but Christ was more than a man. He was God 
manifest in the flesh that he might destroy the works of 
the devil. I scan the roll of earth's heroes and conquerors, 
and I see the name of Jesus written in letters of blood high 
above them all. Napoleon was a great conqueror. You 
have read how he led his army over the snow crowned 
Alps, down through the sunny vales of Italy, across the 
sands of Egypt to the pyramids, on a tour of conquest, 
but he was defeated on the field of Waterloo and died a 
prisoner on the desolate wave washed island of St. Helena. 
Our own Sherman was a mighty conqueror. You know 
how he led the Union army to the sea, cut in twain 
the Confederate army and thus ended the war; but Jesus 



84 THE OLD GOSPEL 

Christ the captain of the Lord's Hosts is marching with a 
mighty army across the empires of the ages. For near two 
thousand years the Christian armies have been assaulting 
the strongholds of sin and satan. Idolatry, superstition, 
and bigotry are retreating before the onward march of 
the Gospel, and so it will continue until the last page of 
human history has been written, and then, having cut in 
twain the forces of error and ended the war between right 
and wrong, truth and falsehood, the victorious Saviour 
will lead His redeemed hosts into the heavenly Jersusalem, 
where there shall be one eternal thanksgiving, a family 
reunion that shall never end. 



THE CALL OF THE HOUR 



"And He called the multitude!* — Matthew I5:i0. 

"And a great multitude followed Him, because they 
saw His miracles." — J no. 6:2. 

"Though it be true that life is short and the world full 
of vanity, yet God's work must be done diligently and to 
the last." — Conybeare. 



THE CALL OF THE HOUR 

THERE are in the world to-day, three institu- 
tions, which take precedence of all others in 
point of antiquity and influence. These are 
the Home, the State and the Church. These 
are all divine institutions in the sense that the necessity 
for them was implanted in man's nature by the Creator 
when He made man. Wherever you find man on the 
earth you will find these institutions, not always fully 
developed to be sure, but at least in rudimentary form. 
They are all divine institutions in the sense that they have 
their origin in one or another of the Divine attributes. 
The home rests upon or grows out of the attribute of love. 
Take love away and you cannot have a home. You may 
have a club or a boarding house but not a home in the 
best sense of the word. The state rests upon the attribute 
of justice. It is the function of the state to secure justice 
between man and man. In so far as any government 
succeeds in accomplishing this purpose it has fulfilled its 
mission, but in so far as it fails in this it fails in its God- 
given purpose. 

The church rests upon the attribute of righteousness 
and its mission is to establish the reign of righteousness 
over all the earth. 

The church is regarded by many as representing mere 
sentiment, beautiful sentiment to be sure but nothing 
more. Others think of the church as a means of prepara- 
tion for death, a kind of fire escape or insurance company 

87 



88 THE OLD GOSPEL 

to insure against loss by fire in the future life. 

As to sentiment, the church stands for the highest and 
best sentiment that has ever entered into the mind of 
man. As a means of preparing for the future, it is the 
only means that is of any great value, "for, there is none 
other name under heaven given among men, whereby 
we must be saved.' ' But the church is also the greatest 
business enterprise in the world to-day. It is a significant 
fact that the first recorded utterance of our Lord was 
a statement in which He characterized His lifework as a 
business enterprise. "Wist ye not that I must be about 
My Father's business?" 

This is an age of big business. Great corporations con- 
trol the business and commercial world and we are con- 
stantly hearing about the importance of big business. Let 
us not forget that as a business enterprise the church of 
Jesus Christ represents the largest permanent investment, 
the largest annual expenditure for running expenses, and 
employs the greatest number of trained workers, of any 
business in the world. The church represents a permanent 
investment in church edifices, furnishings, and grounds, 
mission stations, publishing houses and hospitals with their 
equipment, of something more than $50,000,000,000. It 
represents an annual expenditure, for the conducting of 
the business, of about $2,100,000,000, and employs over 
7,000,000 trained men and women in its work of dis- 
seminating the Gospel. What other business is carried 
on upon such a gigantic scale? 

'I he great work of the church is to persuade the multi- 
tude to follow Jesus Christ. It may do many other things, 
good and useful things and fail in its mission as a church. 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 89 

It may collect vast sums of money for Home and Foreign 
missions and be only a collecting and distributing agency 
for philanthropy. It may support sewing and cooking 
schools and maintain baths and reading rooms and have 
many institutional features and be only a pious club. It 
may have eloquent preaching and the best of music 
and an aesthetic and beautiful ritual and be nothing more 
than a mutual admiration society. We hear a great deal 
in these days about the social message and the social mis- 
sion of the church. That the church has a social mission 
must be granted, but there is danger that in our interest 
in the social problems and social needs of the day we 
shall forget that our Lord's program was to regenerate 
society through the saving of the individual. Christ's 
message is to the individual soul. Society is not to be 
made better enmasse, but by winning individual men and 
women to the faith and service of Christ. "The call of 
the Hour' is the call of the Master's voice that has come 
ringing down the centuries from the shores of the Sea of 
Galilee— "Follow thou me." 

Dr. W. M. Clow in his book, "The Secret of the Lord," 
has put it very plainly and forcefully in these words, "The 
office and function of the Church is plainly to do the work 
Christ gave it to do and no other. Her first and ruling 
purpose should be to win men to Christ. She should 
regard as beyond her province whatever would imperil 
her fitness or her force for this primary duty. She should 
watch with a keen eye any introduction into her pulpit 
of economic or industrial or political questions. The min- 
ister in the pulpit represents the Church at prayer. What- 
ever personal liberty he may rightfully claim for himself, 



90 THE OLD GOSPEL 

he must not desecrate so sacred an hour and waste so 
solemn an opportunity. In a single word, the office and 
function of the Church is to proclaim the truth as it is 
in Jesus and apply that to the hearts and consciences 
of men." 

It is a matter for congratulation that in the Protestant 
Church to-day, with possibly a few minor exceptions, there 
is in all denominations, one and one only standard for 
church membership, viz: personal acceptance of Jesus 
Christ as Lord and Saviour and proof of such acceptance 
by a life of faith, love and obedience. Sometimes the 
church is criticised by those outside for not requiring 
subscription to a definite creed. But our reply is that the 
church cannot afford to set up any standard or make any 
requirement other than that which Christ made and his 
message ever was, "Follow me." Sometimes the church 
is criticised for making the standard too high and insisting 
upon personal allegiance to the divine Christ, but our 
reply is that the church cannot be loyal to Him and lower 
the standard which He set up. But each one must find 
Christ in his own way. As no two people look just alike 
so no two people have exactly the same religious experi- 
ence. Christ appeals to each according to his individual 
mental qualities. He takes into account the personality 
and individuality of each person and makes His appeal 
accordingly. For example, Matthew did not find Christ 
in just the same way that Peter did. 

Peter was not called in the same way that Paul was 
and Paul was not converted in just the same manner as 
was the Philippian jailor. We do not read however, 
that St. Paul ever doubted the conversion of the others 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 91 

because they had not arrived at their decision to follow 
Christ in exactly the same way that he did. This is some- 
times a stumbling block to people outside the church. 
They say, "here are five hundred people in this church and 
no two of them have had exactly the same religious ex- 
perience and no two of them believe just alike. Now if 
there was anything in religion they would all believe alike. 
There are so many denominations and so many beliefs 
that we cannot accept any of them." But this is to mis- 
understand God's way. God's method in nature and in 
grace is the method of unity in diversity. Paul says: 
u One star differeth from another star in glory," but 
there is a perfect unity and harmony about the starlit sky. 
You look out upon a landscape and you do not see all 
golden fields of grain or all green fields of corn or all 
woodland but here and there the yellow fields of grain 
interspersed with the green of the cornfields and these 
surrounded by the deeper green of the woodlands, but all 
one harmonious and beautiful landscape. It was my 
privilege not long since to hear the Oratorio of Elijah 
rendered by a choir of two hundred and fifty voices and an 
orchestra of one hundred and fifty instruments. They 
were not all one kind of instruments nor were they all 
soprano or alto or tenor or bass voices. Each voice had its 
own peculiar tone quality and there were the four parts 
but one beautiful and perfect harmony. So it is in the 
church of Christ, many individual experiences but all 
attuned to the same divine Christ. 

The fundamental question in religion is not, does this 
one or that one accept this or that particular dogma of the 
church or subscribe to the same creed that I accept, but 



92 THE OLD GOSPEL 

does he love Christ and put Him first in his life. Does 
he put his love for Christ before his love of gain, his love 
of pleasure or his love of ease or self indulgence. Is the 
individual honestly striving to obey the Master's com- 
mand when He says: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God 
and His righteousness." If he is doing this we have no 
right to insist upon anything more as a condition of church 
membership. 

Second : Christ is calling the multitude through 
the lives and efforts of His professed disciples. The 
Master has committed to His church the work of 
winning the world to himself. "Ye are my witnesses.' ' 
There is a story that I have read somewhere, to the effect 
that when our Saviour left this world after his resurrec- 
tion, he was met in heaven by Abraham and others of the 
old Testament prophets and one of them asked Him what 
provision He had made for saving the world, and He 
replied, that He had chosen twelve men and instructed 
them in the ways of salvation and sent them forth to tell 
others of His suffering and death upon the cross and these 
in turn would tell others and so on until the end of time; 
but, said one, what if a generation should arise that would 
neglect to tell the message to their children, and the Mas- 
ter replied, "No other provision has been made for the 
salvation of the lost world." This brings home very 
forcibly the duty of the church to witness for Christ and 
to be in earnest in the work He has entrusted to her. 
We who profess to be the followers of Christ have a 
great responsibility resting upon us. We need to pray for 
greater earnestness and more zeal in the matter of making 
Christ known to the lost. 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 93 

It is sometimes said that the Bible is not read as much 
now as it was in a former time and that the sacraments 
do not mean as much as they did in a bygone age. If this 
be true, which I very much doubt, the fault lies at the 
door of the church. If church members neglect to bring 
their children to the baptismal altar is it any wonder that 
the world says there is not much in baptism after all? 
If church members neglect the Lord's table with impunity 
is it any wonder that those outside the church should 
conclude that our Lord's commands are held lightly by 
His followers? When professed Christians put the pre- 
cepts of the Bible into practice in all the relations of life, 
in business, in politics and in society, the world will place 
a higher value upon the Bible than it now does. "Ye are 
living epistles, known and read of all men." The value 
of the sacraments is either enhanced or depreciated by 
our faithfulness or lack of faithfulness. The Bible will 
never mean more to the unconverted than it means to the 
followers of Christ. 

Third: God is calling His church as never before to 
the work of evangelizing the multitude. There never was 
an age when the call was so loud and clear as it is to-day. 
This call comes to us through the opportunities that open 
to us for service. Many fail to hear the call because their 
minds are preoccupied, they are too busy with other things. 
In one of the smaller towers of St. Paul's in London 
there is a clock which strikes the hours from one to 'twelve 
through the twenty-four hours of the day and night. But 
I have been told that there are at least five hundred thou- 
sand people within ten squares of St. Paul's who never 
hear the clock strike. They hear the rustle of fabrics on 



94 THE OLD GOSPEL 

the counters of the marts of commerce, they hear the 
clink of gold on the counters of the exchange, they hear 
the click of machinery and the rumble of the wheels of 
commerce, but they do not hear the clock because their 
minds are taken up with these other things. So there are 
many to-day who do not hear the call to service because 
they are too busy with the things of this world. 

Others fail to hear the call to service because they are 
looking for some great opportunity. But there is no such 
thing as a great opportunity. Great things are accom- 
plished when we do the thing that needs to be done in 
God's time and in God's way. We say, when we think 
of the Sunday school with its 500,000 schools and its 
26,000,000 members, that a great opportunity came to 
Robert Raikes. But Robert Raikes never saw the Sun- 
day school as you and I think of it. What he saw was a 
few children playing in the streets of an English city, and 
what he did was to try to meet the need of the hour by 
securing a number of Christian women to gather those 
children out of the streets and take them to the church on 
the Lord's Day and teach them the Bible and the cate- 
chism. But God's hand was upon that movement and out 
of that effort to save the children grew a great institution 
that God has abundantly blessed in the saving of many 
souls. You may say that a great opportunity came to 
Dr. F. E. Clark when he organized the Christian En- 
deavor movement. But what he did was to organize the 
3 r oung people of his own church in Portland, Maine, for 
service. God blessed his work and it grew to be a world 
wide institution. You do not know when God calls you 
to any particular service that that service will not count 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 95 

for more in eternity than any thing else you have evei 
done. 

Again, God is calling His people to service by the gifts 
with which He has endowed his church. Never before 
was the church so rich in money, culture and influence as 
it is to-day. We used to speak of having an educated 
ministry, but now we have also an educated and cultured 
constituency as well. But God has not bestowed these 
gifts upon us to be used for our own selfish ends. If He 
has given wealth it is that it may be used for His glory. 
Has He given us the advantages of schools and culture, it 
is that we may consecrate these to the work of saving 
the multitude from the paths of sin. But you say that 
while all this is true in general, you are not aware that 
you have any special gifts that you can use for Christ. 
It should be remembered that God's gifts come to us in 
the form of raw material to be worked out by us. God 
does not give us cities ready built. He gives us the timber 
in the forests, the rocks in the quarries, the iron in the 
mountains and we must cut the timber and work it up into 
lumber, we must bring the rock from the quarry and the 
ore from the mines and by developing the raw material we 
build our cities and our factories and our homes. 

So it is that God does not give us churches manned and 
officered, but he gives us the raw material upon which to 
work, men and women who are lost, men and women 
struggling and striving and bearing great burdens upon 
their hearts. He gives us the Gospel message in the Bible 
and He sends us out to call the multitude to the service of 
Christ. 

If we are only willing to bring the little that we have 



96 THE OLD GOSPEL 

in the way of ability to work for Him and lay it at His 
feet He will bless and use it for His own glory and the 
salvation of men. 

Many years ago there was a boy in Chicago clerking in 
a shoe store. He was not a brilliant boy, but he was m 
early life converted, and consecrated all his powers to the 
service of Christ. He went out into the streets of the 
city and gathered together a class of news boys and boot 
blacks and formed them into a Sunday-school class. The 
class grew until there was a church and the church grew 
until there was by its side a school known as the Moody 
Institute and then the work grew until Northfield was 
realized and then Mr. Moody in company with Mr. 
Sankey went up and down the land preaching Christ to 
the multitude and thousands were saved. Like the loaves 
and the fishes brought by the lad to Christ, with which He 
fed the thousands, the talents which Mr. Moody brought 
were small in the worlds eyes, but with the Master's 
blessing they were sufficient to feed thousands with the 
bread of eternal life. You may not have much to bring, 
in your own estimation, but if you are willing to put it 
all at the service of Christ he can make that little mighty 
for good. 

Finally, God's call to service always involves a call to 
preparation. The preparation required is not elaborate 
or expensive but it is absolutely imperative. God cannot 
use those who are not prepared to be used of Him. The 
first element in that preparation is repentance for sin. 
God cannot use the unregenerate man or woman in win- 
ning souls for Christ. "If I regard iniquity in my heart 
the Lord will not hear me." 



IN THE NEW CENTURY 97 

The second element in preparation for service is a 
knowledge of God's Word. The Word is the instrument 
that God uses in bringing conviction to the heart. One 
verse of Scripture is better than yards of rhetoric or hours 
of logic. God has not promised to make argument or 
human logic efficient to the saving of souls, but he has 
promised to bless the use of the Word. For, "My Word 
shall not return unto me void but shall accomplish that 
which I please and shall prosper in the thing whereunto 1 
have sent it." 

Another element in our preparation for service is de- 
pendence upon the Holy Spirit. Some time ago I read 
this incident (in the Homiletic Review) which helps to 
make plain what ought to be our attitude toward the 
Spirit. In a factory where rich fabrics w T ere woven it was 
the rule of the factory that when an operative found a 
snarl in his thread he or she was not to attempt to 
straighten it out, but was to press an electric button and an 
expert would come from the office, whose business it was 
to straighten out the snarl. One day a woman who had 
worked many years in the factory found her thread in a 
snarl and undertook to fix it herself, but the longer she 
worked the worse it became entangled, and at last, in 
despair she pressed the button and when the expert came 
he found that he had to cut the threads and thus the 
web was marred forever. As the man turned to leave, the 
woman said by way of apology or explanation — 'Well, 
I did the best I could' — to which the man replied, 'Your 
best is always to depend on me' — How often in life thi 
threads become entangled and we attempt to straighten 
out the snarl only to make things worse. If we would 



98 THE OLD GOSPEL 

only remember that our best is always to depend upon the 
Holy Spirit and seek through a careful and prayerful 
study of the Word to know what is the mind of the Spirit 
and be willing to be guided thereby, the web of life would 
not so often be marred. With earnest prayer for the help 
of the Holy Spirit may we all hear and heed the call to 
serve our Lord in the great work of leading the multitude 
to know and serve Him. 



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